Assassin's Creed II

I have few words to say about this game, as there's not that much to discuss, but to praise.
First of all, the graphics were improved and the setting changed. Now the Animus takes the player into renaissance Italy, where you control Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young man who travels around the country to avenge his family, killed by conspirator templars. Eventually, Ezio becomes an Assassin and learns about the Pieces of Eden. His archenemy is Rodrigo Borgia, also refered to as "The Spaniard".
The enemies are, again, city guards and personal guards of the high noblemen you have to kill. This time, though, the game is not linear, as the first one was. I mean, in part one all you have to do is go to the city, investigate a bit (like informer challenges, pickpocket or interrogation) and then proceed with the killing), but here the ways you get to your targets and kill them are more elaborate. Plus, I had a hard time passing the Assassins' Tombs levels in order to obtain the six seals necessary to open the grating that guards the armor of Altair.
And now we come to Dominic, as I forgot to talk of him. This time he actually escapes from Abstergo along with Lucy, who takes him to a secret warehouse, where she and two other guys working against the templars get him to enter a home edition of the Animus and control the previous subject's ancestor, Ezio.
The gameplay is slightly modified, as you get new weapons (even a pistol, which surprisingly sucks), and you can FLY! Yeah, you can fly in renaissance Italy. That's because you're a friend of Leonardo Da Vinci and he lets you use his flying machine for a certain purpose.
The music.. well, let's just say Jesper Kyd doesn't disappont us.
What else? The story is very elaborate. I also like the finale, where Ezio... well... let's not make any spoilers and get straight to Dominic, who now has Assassin powers and defeats a bunch of Abstergo soldiers who come after him. I have one little problem here. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY ATTACK HIM WITH PIPES?! WAS IT TOO FUCKING HARD TO GIVE THOSE GUYS GUNS?! THEY'RE IN THE FUCKING 21st CENTURY! Well, the lack of guns can be explained by the fact that they were now allowed to kill Dominic, but still... a stun gun was too hard to get? That way they only got their ass kicked. Also, the Ubisoft guys did an interesting thing here. The end credits scroll while you fight the Abstergo guys so you won't get bored. Nice!
Another thing I want to add is that they finally decided to add subtitles to the game, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE DISABLED BY DEFAULT!!
Ok, I'm done. The conclusion: this game is COOL!
Let's see the judgement!

GAMEPLAY: 9,5/10 (for the annoying action camera)
SOUNDTRACK: 10/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
STORY: 10/10
OVERALL: 9,8/10 (or 10/10, but not perfect)

Assassin's Creed 3 Trailer

The new Assassin's Creed game, called "Brotherhood" is due to be released sometime this November, as you will see by watching the trailer below, released yesterday at E3 2010.

EA Games Fuckups!

Once in a while, a game developing company reaches it's heights - 90% of it's game are great, enjoyable creations that people praise and honor all over the internet and beyond. But... soon after this happens, a flow of shit floods the company and they become unable to release anymore good games! Check out EA GAMES FUCKUPS below to convince yourself I am right.



A lot of old EA GAMES productions are great. I played them some time ago on an older machine and enjoyed them unlike what happens with the newer games, which I play on a better PC and therefore get better graphics and stuff. I'll try and cover a few examples of good game series turned bad below.

1. Harry Potter
The first three games were great for the time. I mean, the characters were kids, so the games were supposed to be fun and easy to play. I liked all three of the games, and I suppose they each deserve at least 8/10.
Game four was the worst in the whole series. Turning the franchise into a stupid RPG (this has become a bad habit today for a lot of game creators), the game only allowed you to do missions, fight magical creatures and bosses. A lifebar doesn't exist, your HP being measured in numbers (100 being maximum and 0 minimum). You can't explore Hogwarts, which is a major letdown. Eventually I got to the lake part which I couldn't pass, and since I didn't want to use a trainer I gave up playing the piece of shit called Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire Videogame. Also, to be noted that the game FORCES you to use 800x600 resolution. What a shitload of fuck! It's hardly worth a 5/10 thanks to the fact that it's a Harry Potter game.
Harry Potter 5 is, by far, the best of the series, because despite the overhead RPG style view that was kept, the graphics were improved, the story was better told, and you could explore Hogwarts once again. It was fun making fun (lol) of Umbridge and causing destructions and stuff. The ministry of magic part is too easy, as even a five year old won't die at the final battle, but overall this game is 9/10. Part six is another disappointment to me, because EA tampered with the designs and now the characters'eyeballs are getting out of their heads. Also, the final part isn't well developed anymore, as you don't get to walk through the cave with Dumbledore (as I imagined you would), but instead all you do is fight the Inferi from the island. Anyway, part 6 is worse than 5 but way better than 4, so it gets a 7/10 from me.

2) Need for Speed
Need for speed is a great racing series. I will start my review with Need For Speed Underground, because before that they were simply racing games without a storyline. I have no complains, the graphics are getting better and better until the new NFS's! I totally hate Need for Speed Pro Street because the races are moved into a closed circuit. I mean, it's a god damn computer game! Nobody gives a shit that you do illegal street races and cause deadly crashes! Still, the game isn't that bad and it gets an 8/10 because it's got great graphics.
Now for the worst NFS of all times! Need for Speed Undercover! Oh my god! That game is simply uncontrollable. The car controls are a joke! The graphics suck even with all the options set to maximum. The only good thing about it is an innovation. They made movie-like cutscenes. Like real pictures filmed with a real camera. Cool, right? At least it gains one point for this piece of shit. Let it be a 6/10 from me.
Need for Speed Shift once again goes into racing circuits, and as far as I've heard it has great graphics and gameplay, but I have to play it myself before I state any opinions.


3. FIFA
The FIFA series is a football simulation game. What makes it great is that EA got an official license from FIFA to make these game, therefore stoping the competition from making a better game than theirs because they can't use the original team names and players! Jeez! This is bullshit!
Anyway, I don't want to talk to the games in this series separately, as there's nothing special to say about each particular one. EA tries to bring innovations in every new game and that's how they fuck it up. For instance, in FIFA 08 some controls are changed (you switch players with Q instead of S by default). Then they add Be a Pro - a game mode in which you can play as one single player and not control the whole team. In FIFA 09 and FIFA 10 the controls were so fucked up that there were tutorials posted all over the internet, which showed how to set controls to be just like in the previous games. There's so little I have to rant about these series, so I'll just stop now.

4. The Godfather
Now we get to the real piece of shit! The Godfather series! The first game was acceptable. You start off by creating a character and dress him up, and then you do missions that cover the first movie. Driving cars, shooting guns, taking over rackets and finally becoming DON. The game earns a well deserved 8/10.
The Godfather II is the masterpiece of shit that made me write this whole EA Fuckups thing in the first place. The graphics are a joke, the car controls are a joke, it's like they make fun of players. At least the shooting is great, and therefore the multiplayer is the same. Now for the story. It seems you are already a DON, but you play as ANOTHER character, so it doesn't make sense. How did you become DON in the first place? Before it took me a whole game to reach this rank and now I simply have it?! I think it was better fighting to achieve the rank of DON than being already DON at the beginning of the game. The game is a piece of shit. You can hire guys that become your family members, take over properties and make sure they aren't conquered by enemies. So the game barely gets a 6/10.

In conclusion, EA fucked up with it's recent releases. Of course, now you'll argue with me, bringing Burnout or The Sims as good examples, but those are just a few titles. So there are good and bad sides. I only spoke about EA's bad sides here, so I guess the good ones are still to be spoken about. But not now. I have other plans next.

Assassin's Creed Review (part 1)

It's summer. School's over.. and that means more time for games! Hell yeah! So what came trough my twisted mind while I was enjoying a can of beer on my couch, watching South Africa vs Mexico in the World Cup opening match? Yeah, you're right. I decided to review another game. This time it's a series of game, so I'll divide the review in two parts. Part two should be coming later (maybe next week), as I haven't finished Assassin's Creed 2 yet. So, let's get to business.



Assassin's Creed is a third person action adventure game, developed and published by Ubisoft. The main plot involves a man, Dominic, being held by a corporation and forced to see his ancestor's memories in order to unveil a certain event that happens in the final memory. I know it sounds complicated but I really don't feel like spoiling this game and any detail I give makes it easier for you to realize what happens next. Your character is Dominic's ancestor, Altair, which you control via some device called "Animus". Altair is a high-ranked Assassin, until he fails a mission because he disobeys the Assassins' rules. This is when he is turned back into a novice and sent by Al Mualim, the master, to perform nine assassinations in order to recover his rank. The rest of the story and the conclusion you can find out by playing the game.
The gameplay is difficult for someone who doesn't play games too often and is not used to pressing a large number of buttons simultaniously. I have a problem with the controls, and it repeats itself in Assassin's Creed 2 as well. THEY USE FUCKING SYMBOLS TO TELL YOU WHAT BUTTONS TO PRESS! JEEZ! What's the point of telling me the button to press if I have to memorize each button's symbol anyway?! Another minus is that the game doesn't have subtitles, making it tough for a non-english speaker to understand the storyline. T
Second of all, aren't you supposed to stay incognito and kill your targets by using stealth? I mean... one of the three Assassin rules clearly states an Assassin has to act silent and remain anonymous. I can guarantee that at least once or twice you will get caught by guards. If this happens you'll have to fight a shitload of bastards until you can run away and become anonymous again. It's ridiculous. If for instance I attack a guard on the ground and I stay there to fight him, more and more will come! It looks as if I killed all the guards in the damn city, but then other ones appear.
I also want to criticise the Dominic parts when I'm left to wander around the lab and eventually go to bed. All I do is walk around like a fucking prisoner in his cell. At some point I read emails from laptops, and then I go to bed. That's all. There's one point in the game when the doctor stands with the back at you, looking out the window. You MUST go behind him and steal his pen at that moment. It's your only chance to be able to read his emails. I think the Dominic parts should have been taken care of much better. I mean, why can't he do what he does in the end earlier?! It could have been his task to decode... . But no! He reads fucking emails before going to bed! Isn't there any privacy in this game?! I guess not.
I was talking about the controls a bit earlier. I'm kinda angry they didn't let the Prince of Persia controls. Those were better. Anyway, I got used to these ones too, so it doesn't make any difference to me right now.
The graphics are great. I ran the game maxed out, at the resolution of 1280x1024 (I don't want to go higher because this is my screen resolution and I don't think my PC will be able to handle high resolutions like 1920x1080). The fact that the game is in widescreen is great as well. Makes me think I'm watching a movie.



Graphics: 9,5/10
Soundtrack: 9/10
Gameplay: 8,5/10 (for the lack of subtitles)
Story: 9,5/10
OVERALL: 9,12/10

A few words on Alice in Wonderland

I don't have time for a full, professional review right now, so I'll limit my speech on Alice in Wonderland (2010) to a few words.
First of all, calling this film "Alice in Wonderland" is completely wrong. The more suitable title would have been "Alice in Underland". Even the characters welcome Alice in Underland, not Wonderland.
Seriously now, how many Tim Burton films have you seen recently?! I can say a few words about this director:
1) Johnny Depp is in EVERY ONE of his movies.
2) All his movies have a dark and bloody theme, so it was a big surprise to me when I found out he was going to do an Alice in Wonderland remake.
3) Despite all that, he is a fuckin' genius! Tim Burton rocks!
Now, back to Alice in Wonderland. I think the actors do a great job. Johnny Depp fits perfectly as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter was a great big-headed queen, despite her desire too cut people's heads off. The choice for the main character, Mia Wasikowska as Alice, is also well inspired. I had my doubts when I first heard the blue caterpillar talk, but a second later I was sure I recognized Alan Rickman's voice. Yeah, even Stephen Fry does voice acting in this movie (he provides the teleporting cat's voice).
The story is easy to follow. Alice is now 19 and her family forces to marry some rich lord. At her wedding, right before having to say yes, she sees the good ol' white rabbit again and follows it. She yet again falls in the rabbit hole and finds herself in Underland. She can eat a special cake to become bigger and drink some potion to become smaller (maybe it's vice-versa, I don't know, I'm confused too). At first, the rabbit thinks he brought back the wrong Alice, but then she is proved to be the right one. There's a prediction Alice will slay a dragon (can't remember it's name right now), and thus defeat the Red Queen once and for all. The rest of the story you'll have to find out by yourself, as I'm really in a hurry right now and I have to end this prematurely. I won't even add a final judgement. I'll just say that I'd give this movie an 8,5/10.

GTA IV Review

Grand Theft Auto IV (or 4) continues the series of action games created by Rockstar Games back in the late 90's and continued until the present. This is probably the original sequel to GTA III, as the other PC ones, Vice City and San Andreas are just like an expansion, like, using the same engine, but adding better graphics, and they only complete the story of GTA 3 and therefore are not called GTA 4 and 5, but in fact they're named after the cities the action happens into.
In GTA IV, you play as Niko Bellic, a russian imigrant who came in America for an apparent reason (his cousin's description of the country) and for a hidden reason that I'm not going to reveal right now.
The game installs along with Windows Live, for multiplayer gaming, and Rockstar Games Social Club, which probably has the same purpose. I don't know exactly, I wasn't interested in trying it out. Besides I couldn't try the multiplayer even if I wanted to, because I got my game from torrents and if you don't have the original game you can't use the multiplayer feature.
When you start the game, you can either begin playing with the graphics settings the game automatically selects depending on your computer's capabilities, or you can go to Options and then the Graphics tab and modify them as your like.
The graphics are good and live up to people's expectations. The characters are well designed and their personality is reflected by their looks, in the first place, and then by their actions.
The controls in this game are great. I could say they're way better than in the previous games. Despite that, the helicopter controls suck. I prefer the San Andreas ones over these ones. I just can't do anything with a helicopter because as soon as I take off, I crash. That's why the final mission was impossible for me to complete. And that's a big surprise, as all the other missions are easy to accomplish without any cheats. The shooting is better than in it's predecessors. I am glad they now let you hide behind items\walls, to cover during a gunfight. That way my character doesn't take that much damage from enemies' bullets. The weapon selection sucks because there's no Minigun (my favorite gun in GTA!) and a lot of other guns I used to have in previous GTA's are gone (OK, there are new weapons in Episodes from Liberty City, but that's another story). Also, I'm disappointed in the clothes selection. There aren't enough clothes to choose from, and the existing selection is not very satisfying, at least not to me.
The story is great, the characters' lines are well made-up and the jokes... well, let's just say I laughed out loud every time Niko made an ironical comment. The only thing different from the other GTA's is the finale. Usually, the main character becomes rich and powerful, and kills all his enemies, but in this one the ending is a bit different. Since I hate spoilers, I won't do one here.
The things I liked most in this game, even though I never took advantage of them are: being able to make friends and go out with them, to eat or to play darts or pool or bowling, to make girlfriends and date them (even though I only went 100% with the first one), and to ride in cabs wherever you want. I only took a cab when, for instance, I couldn't get past a mission and I failed it a lot of times, and I didn't want to go all the way back to where the mission starts.
I also need to specify this game makes you choose who to kill at some point. I recommend looking up this info on the internet before shooting. When you get to choose between A or B, you need to find out which one gives what advantages and make your decision based on that. In the final part of the game, you get to choose whether to make a deal with one of your enemies or go to his location and kill him. Either way, the ending you get will not be the one you expect.
Overall, GTA IV is a great game and I enjoyed playing it. Now I thought I should give Episodes from Liberty City a shot. That one is a game that somehow fills some blanks left by the original GTA IV. It consists of two games, "The Lost and Damned" and "The Ballad of Gay Tony". You can get it from Steam as a digital download, or from torrents, as I did.


Graphics: 9,5/10
Soundtrack: 9/10 (for radio tracks and a great main theme)
Gameplay: 9,5/10
Story: 10/10
Overall: 9,5/10

Game Previews

1. Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light
Gameplay trailer:

Well, I've seen the gameplay trailer above myself and I'm left with only a few words about this game: THEY FUCKED UP! How can you turn Tomb Raider into a fucking RPG?! HOW?! I'm so pissed I could go over to Crystal Dynamics and shoot every last bastard working there! There was one game series I liked and they FUCKED IT UP! First Ubisoft fucked up Prince of Persia with that stupid joke of a game that wasn't even titled, released back in '08, and now Eidos fucks up Tomb Raider! How very convenient is that?!
By the way, guess who brings us the next Tomb Raider game on PC! Aw, yes, I just noticed, the game is not called Tomb Raider anymore! Just Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light! That's great! It means the producers know this is going to be an epic fail and don't want Tomb Raider to be connected with it.
2. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Ubisoft preview with commentaries:

Well, it's a good thing Ubisoft realized they fucked up and now they try to make up with the fans by releasing another Prince of Persia, called The Forgotten Sands. As far as I could see, the game is promising, except for the Prince's face. I'm sorry, but to me, Prince of Persia ended with The Two Thrones. The pile of shit that is Prince of Persia 4 (2008) helped me to draw this conclusion. Anyway, we're a few days away from the release date, so... the waiting is killing you, right?